On Finding Love

Valentine’s Day has always been one of my favorite holidays (even though I’ve been single AF for most of them). I don’t know … I just love, love. And Hallmark movies. And candy. And connecting with people. And relationships of all sorts.

I can’t help it. I got this soft, sappy heart that’s full of feelings. Probably the Taurus in me.

I spent majority of my 20s being sad. I was heartbroken all the time mainly because I always thought love was supposed to just find you. That this other person would somehow crash into your life and do and say all the right things to make you feel loved and whole and accepted. All you had to do was wait for it. All you had to do was be patient. Love required no effort … Love required no work.

Well, after a lot of disappointment and tears and journaling and podcasts and self-help books and time alone wandering around mountains to just think about stuff and hours spent in yoga studios twisting my body in weird positions to make sense of my life … My whole outlook on love (and life for that matter) has finally changed. Thank God.

I think we’re each responsible for creating love in our own hearts. We first have to feel it by ourselves. And we do that by getting to know ourselves. By spending time alone. By figuring out what makes us feel alive. By holding space for the broken parts of us. By taking care of not just our bodies but our minds and spirits. By noticing what makes our hearts swell up and doing those things as often as we can.

I think love is infinite. We don’t run out of it. It’s never wasted. It’s never wrong. It’s ours to share freely and I don’t think we share it enough.

I think you can (and should) fall in love every single day. With the little things. With places. With experiences. With people. With your life. With yourself.

I spent all weekend in and out of yoga studios, teaching and taking classes. In between, I ran, I read, I wrote, I got lost in playlists, I dusted off my ukulele that I haven’t touched since April, and I enjoyed simply being with me. I’ve realized that despite being as single as I’ve ever been in the past five years, I’ve never felt more love in my heart than I do right now.

It turns out, the love I was waiting for was inside me all along.